Where we open the Door to a new World

Our Vision:

Together, we are committed to creating a supportive environment, where all children are provided with opportunity to develop into confident readers with a life-long love of reading and the ability to access the wider world and flourish as individuals.

Our Intent:

                 "After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world."

Philip Pullman

At Sandal Castle Primary, it is our priority to ensure every child has the necessary skills they need to become successful, confident readers. We know that reading is the key to academic success. It helps children to access learning in all subjects, alongside the benefits that it can bring in later life. We use reading as the core of our curriculum, and we ensure children have exposure to books that reflect a diverse range of characters, cultures and backgrounds. We provide a rich reading diet consisting of a variety of authors and genres. Children will read for fluency, read for meaning and read for pleasure throughout the school day.

At Sandal Castle Primary School, we want to establish a life-long love of reading for all stakeholders.

A love of reading opens the door to adventures, provides the opportunity to step into another often-safer world and allows connections to be created between readers, who share and value the importance of developing a reading identity.

Aside from language and literacy, reading is also an important tool for helping children develop empathy. Reading books about other cultures, lifestyles, feelings and opinions allows children to gain a deeper understanding of people whose lives are very different from their own. 

Books can support children understand their own feelings in a positive and healthy way. Through reading, children can see how characters experience big emotions such as anger or sadness and recognise that these are normal feelings – and through reading discussions provide them with a forum where they can share and understand them. Giving a child the ability to access this world of reading drives everything we do in our school.

 

                 

 KS2 Reading Curriculum:

At Sandal Castle Primary, reading is delivered through a structured, high-quality curriculum aligned with the National Curriculum (2014). Our approach includes daily Comprehension sessions designed to develop fluent, confident readers with strong comprehension skills and weekly Read and Respond sessions, where opportunity is given to reflect on quality texts, deepen understanding and develop critical thinking.

Comprehension 

Structure:

We deliver five comprehension sessions each week explicitly linked to our school Reading Gems, focusing on:

• Teacher-modelled reading
• Explicit vocabulary instruction
• Prosody and fluency practice (intonation, expression, and pacing)
• Text analysis and discussion
• Targeted comprehension tasks linked to our Reading Gems (e.g. inference, definition, explanation)

Purpose:

These lessons ensure children don’t just decode text, but understand it. Key outcomes include:

• Developing fluency in reading, both aural and verbal.
• Understanding meaning and author intent
• Developing critical thinking and analysis
• Building confidence and engagement with texts
• Enhancing communication and listening skills
• Supporting learning across the curriculum

Books and Text Selection

Each term, children study a range of high-quality fiction, non-fiction, and poetry texts. These texts are carefully selected to:

• Support repeated, meaningful reading
• Extend and enrich vocabulary
• Represent diverse cultures, backgrounds, and experiences
• Help children explore identity and empathy
• Introduce varied perspectives and lived experiences
• Progress in thematic and lexical complexity across the school

Read and Respond 

Structure

As part of our whole-school reading approach, we provide a dedicated weekly story session, explicitly linked to our Reading Gems, designed to deepen pupils' understanding of texts, promote reflection, and foster critical thinking. These sessions create meaningful opportunities for children to engage with high-quality literature in an immersive and interactive way. This is presented as follows:

• Focused Text Reading - A carefully selected section of a high-quality text is read aloud by the teacher. The reading is purposeful, often paused at key moments to model questioning, inference, and prediction. Emphasis is placed on expressive delivery and helping children visualise and engage with the story world.
•  Guided Class Discussion - Children participate in structured discussion, prompted by open-ended questions. Pupils are encouraged to make connections, express opinions, justify ideas with evidence, and explore deeper meanings. The teacher facilitates inclusive talk, ensuring all voices are heard and respected.
• Creative Response Activity - Pupils respond to the text through a variety of engaging activities designed to demonstrate and consolidate their understanding. These may include drama, drawing, writing in role, mapping emotions, freeze frames, thought tracking, or reflective writing. Activities are differentiated to support all learners and promote ownership of ideas.

Purpose:

• To expose pupils to a wide range of rich, diverse texts
• To model fluent, expressive reading and promote enjoyment of books
• Expanding vocabulary through rich texts
• To develop pupils' ability to think deeply about texts, characters, themes, and language
• Building analytical and evaluative thinking
• To provide structured opportunities for discussion, reasoning, and creative response
• Embedding a life-long habit of reading

Books and Text Selection:

Text selection for our weekly story sessions is carefully curated to ensure a rich and diverse reading experience. We draw on a range of high-quality texts, including children’s classics, modern literature, and texts that link meaningfully to the wider curriculum.  These texts are carefully selected to:

•  Inspire, engage, and challenge readers
• Develop rich language and vocabulary
• Represent diverse voices and perspectives 
• Deliver strong moral or emotional messages 
• Spark curiosity and imagination
• Balance timeless storytelling with contemporary relevance

                        Wider Reading Curriculum:

At Sandal Castle Primary, we are committed to developing a lifelong love of reading in all our children. Each class in Key Stage 2 makes regular visits to our local community library, Sandal Library, giving pupils the opportunity to explore books beyond the classroom and develop as independent readers. During the summer break, pupils are encouraged to take part in the Summer Reading Challenge, also supported by the local library.

We actively celebrate authors, illustrators, poets and storytellers throughout the year — not only on special occasions such as World Book Day, but also through in-school events, author visits, and storytelling workshops. These moments help bring books to life and inspire pupils to explore new genres and voices.

We believe every child deserves to see themselves as a reader. Our role is to match each child with the right book at the right time. All staff model a passion for reading and share their enthusiasm for books. Children are regularly encouraged to discuss and recommend books through our weekly Book Club and ERIC (Everyone Reading in Class) sessions, creating a vibrant reading culture across school.

At Sandal Castle Primary, our library is not confined to one room — it is embedded throughout the school in the form of themed reading nooks. These carefully curated spaces, positioned near relevant learning areas, are designed to make books visible, accessible, and meaningfully connected to the curriculum. Each nook focuses on a particular subject or theme, such as science, history, or poetry, and offers high-quality texts to spark curiosity and deepen understanding. Children are free to choose books, read at their own pace, and return them when finished, encouraging independence and ownership of their reading. This splintered library model supports cross-curricular learning, promotes reading for pleasure, and reflects our commitment to fostering a reading-rich environment across the school.

                            Reading Ambassadors:

Our Reading Ambassadors play a vital role in promoting a love of reading at Sandal Castle Primary. Working closely with the Senior Leadership Team, they help ensure that reading is accessible to every child in our school. As part of their responsibilities, they act as school librarians—regularly checking that reading nooks and year group book hubs are well-stocked, organised, and respectfully maintained.

Beyond their work within the school, our Reading Ambassadors also represent Sandal Castle in the wider community. They visit local nurseries to read aloud to younger children, helping to nurture early reading experiences, and are actively involved in welcoming and hosting visitors from other schools who come to learn about our reading culture. Through their leadership, commitment, and enthusiasm, our Reading Ambassadors help to make reading a valued and visible part of daily life for every child.

We are also proud of the strong partnerships we have built with our local community. Our dedicated team of Reading Friends visit weekly to share stories, recommend books, and nurture a shared love of reading in our children.

 

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